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Re: Space & Science megathread

Apparently Pluto is "geologically active". The pointy heads are getting all excited, but haven't actually shown any proof yet or told us exactly what they mean. The speculation is that they have a evidence of a volcano on Pluto, but that's exactly what it is at present-pure speculation.

Re: Space & Science megathread

Originally Posted by http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-21/take-cover-wall-street-breaking-out-bubblies, comments sexion

The iCar interior and exterior look and feel (including wheels) will be based on skeuomorphic design featuring wooden, leather and green felt textures with rounded corners.
Your windscreen will break for no reason. Do not panic when this happens, you have insurance.
The battery is hidden and cannot be replaced or repaired.
The iCar dashboard will feature an attractive Swiss Railways analog clock! Rufen sie ihren anwalt.
You cannot connect the iCar directly to an electrical outlet; you must use iCharge hardware/software to convert electricity into an energy type that is compatible.
U2's latest album will come pre-loaded in the iCar's media player; you are not allowed to remove this album.
The iCar may run over and injure innocent pedestrians. Do not panic when this happens, you have insurance.
Operating system updates may brick your iCar. Do not panic when this happens, you have insurance.

Warning: Do not make the mistake of calling people who sell iCars "sales people", they are Incredibly Intelligent Savants.

Re: Space & Science megathread

I bet it's not. I bet it's down to Telegraph waving hand-wringers who believe prison is like a holiday camp and think providing them with toilets is a luxury too far.

Of course, it is the kind of thing that ends up in the ECHR, so why don't they just stop and listen to the prison wardens who will actually have to face several thousand inmates all going through withdrawal at the same time before it gets that far?

Re: Space & Science megathread

Silly. Use the massive numbers generated by the size of the universe to predict "intelligent civilizations", then completely ignore the distances between bits of the universe. "Where is everybody?" Really far over there, you numpty.

Originally Posted by TheEastIsRed

Fascinating stuff. But of course the Earth is only 4000 years old, some geezers wrote books hundreds of years ago saying it, so it must be true.

Re: Space & Science megathread

From the Fermi Paradox

Explanation Group 2: Type II and III intelligent civilizations are out there—and there are logical reasons why we might not have heard from them. Group 2 explanations get rid of any notion that we’re rare or special or the first at anything—on the contrary, they believe in the Mediocrity Principle, whose starting point is that there is nothing unusual or rare about our galaxy, solar system, planet, or level of intelligence, until evidence proves otherwise. They’re also much less quick to assume that the lack of evidence of higher intelligence beings is evidence of their nonexistence—emphasizing the fact that our search for signals stretches only about 100 light years away from us (0.1% across the galaxy) and suggesting a number of possible explanations. Here are 10:

Possibility 1) Super-intelligent life could very well have already visited Earth, but before we were here. In the scheme of things, sentient humans have only been around for about 50,000 years, a little blip of time. If contact happened before then, it might have made some ducks flip out and run into the water and that’s it. Further, recorded history only goes back 5,500 years—a group of ancient hunter-gatherer tribes may have experienced some crazy alien shit, but they had no good way to tell anyone in the future about it.

Von Daniken argued that the information on visits was passed on by the ancients.

Re: Space & Science megathread

If we’re right that there are 100,000 or more intelligent civilizations in our galaxy, and even a fraction of them are sending out radio waves or laser beams or other modes of attempting to contact others, shouldn’t SETI’s satellite array pick up all kinds of signals?

It should, but then it's not really being used very extensively. Most of the sky isn't covered and they are only looking for certain things.

...in any case, we aren't able to detect dark matter, so if another species was using that as a communication medium, we'd not know. And the expected habitable planet amount is still a small percentage of all systems, so even the closest of millions of species might still not be in any system nearby. If it was (Proxima Centauri) and they used the electromagnetic spectrum to communicate like we do, the following conversation:

"Hello Earth, this is Proxima. 'sup?"

"'sup Proxima, just chillin"

...would take so long to occur that if Proxima sent the message tomorrow, Ben Osborne would probably be about to retire by the time they hear back from us, and that's if we hear them and reply immediately. In any case it's a red dwarf star and it flares, so good luck to any chemicals that want to become life in that environment.